Working as a Personal Chef vs In a Restaurant

Working in a restaurant versus as a personal chef in a home can be very different in some ways. In both restaurants and in homes, we always, without a doubt make food taste delicious. There’s a huge difference, however, in how that happens. When working in a restaurant, you want the guests to continue to come back, so for instance, the mashed potatoes will be loaded with gallons of heavy cream. It may not be good for you, but in reality, it tastes really good. If a guest doesn’t finish their meal, and decides to take it home, you don’t have to worry about giving reheating instructions, unless they ask for them. Fine dining can get very hectic on an everyday basis, so sometime cooks may not put the amount of love into preparing a meal like a private or personal chef would.

When a personal chef is working in a client’s home, the food also will always taste great, however, we won’t load heavy cream in our potatoes or use a ton of oil to sear a chicken breast. We always have to be mindful of what and how much of an ingredient is going into our client’s food, especially if there are any health restrictions. Leaving proper and complete reheating instructions are very important too. Some people really do need instructions on how to use their oven. Also if a filet mignon is reheated too long, you have one component of a great meal gone to waste. We are great cooks and we know how to make food very tasteful without all of the extra fat. Using the freshest ingredients, we can make that happen.

One of the similarities of working in a private home versus a restaurant is that you have to clean up. The same way that you would wipe down the line in an industrial kitchen or wipe the handles of your walk-in, we clean the handles of the refrigerator and make sure to clean the island and any other surfaces that are dirty. We may be working in slightly different settings, but we always have to make sure that your kitchen is clean and tidy when we’re finished cooking.

In a lot of ways, skills acquired in restaurants are carried over to the world of being a personal chef, but there are many things that personal chefs need to change to be successful. Since we’re providing so many meals, they need to taste great without all the extra fatty ingredients, so we rely more on fresh herbs and spices for great flavor without all the fat.

This post was written by Atlanta Personal Chef Service’s Georgena Mason. Below, you’ll see some of the dishes she’s recently cooked for families around Atlanta. To find out more about our services, please visit our website at www.AtlantaPersonalChefService.com.



Atlanta Personal Chef Service - Basic Service Family Style Meal

Atlanta Personal Chef Service - Basic Service Family Style Meal

Atlanta Personal Chef Service - Basic Service Family Style Meal

The Truth About Multivitamins

Recently articles from the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune warned its readers about taking multivitamins pills. Those articles were based on the trend of people who take their vitamins as a substitute to fruits and vegetables. Some people even believe that taking those vitamins might prevent them from getting a heart attack, cancer, and other diseases. “In the Physicians’ Health Study II, we found no evidence overall that taking a multivitamin for more than a decade prevented heart attacks or strokes or any more than taking a placebo, but it didn’t increase risk, either,” says Howard Sesso, a Harvard epidemiologist who conducted the study.

The problems is that the majority of people who take multivitamins believe they don’t need to eat as many vegetables or fruits, since they are consuming their vitamins through supplements. Also, they believe that the supplements will prevent diseases. These people are obviously wrong. Its common sense that eating healthy, balanced meals with fruits and vegetables and exercising is the best way to be healthy, but people are lazy and always trying to find that magic pill so they don’t need to worry about their heath. It does not exist. There’s plenty of research that has already been proved that eating healthy and exercising is the best way to prevent diseases. There are many health components in fruits and vegetables (many that we still don’t know about it) that a multivitamin pill does not have.  The fact is that taking a multivitamin pill can be good, only if taken as supplement to a healthy diet and not as a substitute for one. Unfortunately for many lazy people out there, eating healthy and exercising is still the best way to be healthy and no amount of supplements can substitute that, at least for now.

At Atlanta Personal Chef Service, we know the value of eating healthy, well-rounded meals, and we help families make this a part of their regular routine.  Clients have told us that they feel better and more energized after eating our meals.  Most people are fully capable of eating healthy, but they don’t have the time or energy to devote to shopping, cooking, and cleaning.  We love cooking for families and share a sense of enthusiasm about helping families eat healthy, wholesome, great tasting foods.  For more information about our weekly dinner service, visit our web page here.  We serve families in Buckhead, Vinings, Midtown, Marietta, Dunwoody, Decatur, and more.

Seasonal Menus at Atlanta Personal Chef Service

The fall is here and the Atlanta Personal Chef Service team is excited for a busy season of holiday parties, special occasion dinner parties, corporate events, and romantic dinners for two. We bring excellent dishes to dinner tables around Atlanta and the surrounding areas, including Buckhead, Marietta, Dunwoody, Vinings, Brookhaven, Decatur and Alpharetta. In the state of Georgia, fall offers seasonal ingredients such as apples, corn, eggplant, field peas, peppers, squashes, Vidalia onions, cabbage, pecans, sweet potatoes, arugula, beets and kale.  We update our menus each season to bring the freshest, healthiest, tastiest dishes to your dining room.  Contact us today to find out about our dinner parties and see our sample fall menu. Also, don’t forget to check out our Facebook page!

Sample Seasonal Starters:

Maple Bacon wrapped Shrimp with Butternut Squash Purée garnished with Fried Edamame

Goat Cheese Tart with oven roasted Tomatoes and Caramelized Sweet Onions garnished with Arugula tossed in Lemon Vinaigrette

Picking Ingredients at Season's Peak

Atlanta Personal Chef Service - Fresh Avocado Salad over Seasonal Greens

Atlanta Personal Chef Service always uses the freshest ingredients available for the highest quality and best tasting dinners. Everyday our chefs go to grocery stores around Atlanta and the surrounding areas, such as Buckhead, Marietta, Dunwoody, Roswell and Alpharetta, to stores including Publix, WholeFoods, Harry's, and the Buford and Dekalb Farmers Markets. We always integrate seasonal ingredients into our menus, so we provide Atlanta Personal Chef Service’s clients dishes that taste great and are as fresh as can be. Summer in the state of Georgia offers seasonal ingredients such as blueberries, corn, cucumbers, field peas, melon, peaches, peppers, tomatoes, Vidalia onions, and summer squashes. Close to Atlanta is Florida, with their seasonal ingredients of avocados, cantaloupe, mangoes, peppers, and watermelon. Apricots, celery, cherries, gooseberries, nectarines, peas, rhubarb, strawberries, and tomatoes come in from Tennessee. Our chefs are always striving to cook the best and freshest food of the season. To see more pictures of our freshly prepared foods, visit our website (www.AtlantaPersonalChefService.com) or Facebook page.

Use a Personal Chef for a Truly Unique Proposal

Proposal season has arrived! Grooms-to-be all over Atlanta and Buckhead are thinking up crafty ways to pop that question to their significant other. Some are reserving seats in fancy Buckhead restaurants planning to propose to their girlfriends, while others are planning a surprise in the park. But why not try something different that is more romantic and less crowded? For those of you who live around the Perimeter area of Atlanta (Marietta, Buckhead, Dunwoody, Midtown, Vinings), Atlanta Personal Chef Service would be happy to help you plan a special evening for the big proposal. Have an intimate dinner in the coziness of your home or condo, while our chefs cook and serve a menu tailored just for you. All of our chefs have experience in high end restaurants and know how to make a memorable evening with great food. Atlanta Personal Chef Service will work with you to customize your perfect menu. We will gladly show you some samples menus, which you are encouraged to customize as you like. For example, if you have gone to Buckhead Diner or any other restaurant and had a dish you really enjoyed, we will gladly cook a similar (and better!) dish for you. We are a professional service dedicated to planning and executing a wonderful dinner that you and your future bride will always remember. Atlanta Personal Chef Service serves Atlanta, Buckhead, Marietta, Dunwoody, Midtown and other areas around the perimeter with tasty dinners and wonderful memories. Find out more about our dinner service here.

Grocery Shopping with Atlanta Personal Chef Service

Have you seen Atlanta Personal Chef Service's team of chefs shopping in your local Publix and Whole Food's stores?  We do most of our shopping in the early afternoon hours, so that dinner is ready when you come home from work.  But we also shop over the weekends to get the freshest ingredients for our dinner parties around Atlanta.

Take a look at the photo's below as we follow one of our Personal Chefs, Kym, who joined the Atlanta Personal Chef Service team in early January.  Kym cooks dinner three nights a week for a family of four in Buckhead.  With two working parents, and two school-aged children, there's just not enough hours in the day to prepare healthy, home-cooked meals as well.  But you don't have to give up that family time of dinner each night.  For many families, its the routine of enjoying a meal together every night that binds the family together across everyone's busy schedules.  Our service allows busy families to return to the dinner table, and create a lifestyle of eating together, and eating healthy, tasty meals.

If you'd like to find out more about Atlanta Personal Chef Service, please visit our website here.  Take a sneak peak into one of Kym's latest shopping trips.  Menus are customized for each family at the beginning of each week, and chef's bring the menus to guide their shopping each day.  Of course, we also always select the freshest ingredients, so you'll always see seasonal items on the menus.  Here, Chef Kym is shopping in Publix, but we also shop at Whole Foods, Harry's, and some specialty stores on occasion.

A Great Valentine's Day with a Personal Chef

Looking for a unique, personalized, and romantic gift for Valentine's Day?  Surprise that special someone with a private four-course dinner prepared by a personal chef in the comfort of your own home.  Don't fight the crowds and lines of the restaurants on the 14th.  Enjoy fine-dining from the comfort of your own dining table.  This year, we've put together a menu that provides a tasting of Atlanta Personal Chef Service.  The menu is below:

Valentine’s Day 2013

Soup

Tomato Basil Bisque with Manchego Crostini

Salad

Red Wine Poached Pear Mixed Green Salad with Goat Cheese and Cranberry Walnut croutons tossed with Balsamic Vinaigrette

Entrée

Seared Filet Mignon with Cabernet Sauce over roasted Root Vegetable purée with sautéed Asparagus

(Herb Crusted Lamb Chops $10 additional)

-or-

Seared Salmon with Beurre Blanc sauce over Mushroom Risotto with Brocollini

Dessert

Chocolate Lava Cake with Assorted Berries and Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

-or-

Crème Brûlée garnished with Fresh Berries

Your chef will arrive about 2 hours before your scheduled meal time, with fresh ingredients in hand, and prepare your dinner in your own kitchen.  That means you'll need to have a working oven and stove, and some extra space in the fridge.  All you'll have to do is pick out your favorite bottle of wine or champagne, and enjoy the meal.  Your chef will do all the cooking, serve each course of the meal as if you were in a fine restaurant, and clean up everything afterwards.  The cost of the service, food included, is $350 for two.  (Please contact us for special rates for dinners with multiple couples. Dinners held outside the Perimeter will incur an additional $20 travel fee.)

We only have a few reservations left for the 14th, so contact us or call us today to schedule your Valentine's Day Dinner!

Behind the Scenes of a Dinner Party with Atlanta Personal Chef Service

So, while you are enjoying your company and the great food being prepared, what’s taking place in the kitchen to make it all happen?  See below for a sneak peak!

Chef Patricia starts sauteeing the root vegetables

Chef Patricia and Chef David making Butternut Squash soup

Toasted Baguettes ready for the Cheese Board

Atlanta Personal Chef Service Chef David makes sure the temperature is just right

Chef David prepares the Goat Cheese Tarts

Chef Patricia and Chef David plate the main course

 

Chef Patricia tops of the Chocolate Lava Cakes with Creme Anglaise

 

Our chefs will arrive about 2-3 hours before serving time to make all the courses of your meal, typically consisting of a soup, salad, entrée, and dessert.  Basically, we’re bringing the restaurant to your home, so you can enjoy your time with your guests.  We’ll set the table, pour the drinks, bring out each course, and clear the plates.  When we leave, the trash is already taken out and the dishes are clean and put away.  We making hosting parties so easy, you won’t have to deal with restaurant crowds again!

Each course is shown below:

Atlanta Personal Chef Service Goat Cheese Tart with Roasted Tomatoes, Caramelized Onions, and Arugula

 

Atlanta Personal Chef Service Butternut Squash Soup with Toasted Pumpkin Seeds and Nutmeg Cream

Atlanta Personal Chef Service American style Wedge Salad with Apple Smoked Bacon and Blue Cheese

Atlanta Personal Chef Service Filet Mignon with Cabernet Sauce over roasted Root Vegetables and Asparagus

Atlanta Personal Chef Service Chocolate Lava Cake with Creme Anglaise, Fresh Berries, and Vanialla Bean Ice Cream

Interested in having Atlanta Personal Chef Service host your next dinner party?  See our Services page here or call us at 404-913-4633.  We look forward to hearing from you!

What's cooking at Atlanta Personal Chef Service?

This week will be another busy week for Atlanta Personal Chef Service!  Among many of the fine dishes that our personal chefs will be cooking this week for our clients are these two-course meals:

 Baked Brie with Orange Marmalade

Seared Seabass with Edamame, Succotash, and Butternut Squash Puree

 

Veggy Slaw with Lemon Vinaigrette

Grilled Pork Loin with Chimichurri Sauce, Potato Hash and sauteed Yellow Squash

 

Grilled Corn Salad

BBQ grilled Salmon with Sweet Potato Puree and Roasted Asparragus

 

Wedge Salad with Blue Cheese 

Cilantro-Lime Marinated Flank steak with Brown rice and Caramalized "Burned" Broccoli

 

Caesar Salad with fresh Croutons

Homemade Turkey Meatballs with Tomato Sauce, Linguini Pasta and sauteed Snow Peas

 

Each family has one chef paired to cook their dinners during the work week.  Personal Chefs go grocery shopping each day, arriving to our clients homes with the freshest produce, seafood, and ingredients available.  With a chef in your home, that means no menu planning, shopping, cooking, or clean up!  Just time with the family at the dinner table, and the enjoyment of home-cooked food.  Oh, and of course a kitchen filled with the aroma of home cooking.  For more information about our services, click here.



Atlanta Personal Chef Service Welcomes Chef Mayhayla to the Team!

We are excited to introduce our newest Chef, Mayhayla, to the team.  She’s been cooking in Atlanta for over 9 years, and now she’s joining our team as a personal chef, cooking dinners during the work-week for our clients around the city.  Read more about Mayhayla below: 

From a young age, Mayhayla had a passion for cooking. Growing up, she would often cook dinner for her family and test out new recipes on them. She knew she wanted to be a chef from childhood.

Mayhayla graduated in 2005 from the Art Institute of Atlanta with an Associate degree in the culinary arts. The Associate Degree program covers skills such as knife handling, food safety and sanitation, international cuisines, nutrition, and food industry management. While receiving basic overall culinary training and cooking techniques, Mayhayla completed her degree with a focus in Nutrition.

Mayhayla launched her culinary career at the Westin Atlanta Hotel full-service restaurant Palio. While there, she gained experience in sautéing, grilling, pastries, and banquet parties. She later left the kitchen to become a shift manager in the front of the house. She loved the customer service side of the business and was good at it too.

In 2009, Mayhayla become the general manager at Boneheads in the Peachtree Battle Shopping Center, where she worked with ordering and receiving product, profit and loss, marketing, and advertising. Mayhayla’s responsibilities included overseeing the chefs and training new chefs as they joined the team.

With Mayhayla’s passion for food, culinary knowledge, chef experience, and food industry management experience, she has the unique set of skills it takes to be a great personal chef. She loves to prepare fresh salads with homemade dressings, grilling of any kind, and preparing wild game.

In her free time she loves gardening, canning, pickling and reading.

Read more about our team at Atlanta Personal Chef Service here!

Hire a Personal Chef to bring your Family Back to the Dinner Table

The summer months are just about over, that is if you have school aged children. The kids are getting ready to go back to school and that means even busier schedules, more transporting the kids around, and typically a heavier workload in the office. How do families these days find time to enjoy healthy meals together at the dinner table? Personal Chefs.

More and more families are depending on personal chefs to provide healthy, family meals one to seven nights of the week. With a personal chef, you don't need to worry about planning menus, going grocery shopping, following recipes, or cleaning your kitchen. All you need to do is show up, and enjoy the food, which is cooked in your own home.

There are a few different types of personal chef services, most notably the "fresh cooking" and the "freeze-and-go" styles. Atlanta Personal Chef Service cooks fresh, visiting clients homes every day the family plans to eat at home together. They start the day picking the freshest ingredients and then cook the food to be enjoyed that evening. "Freeze-and-go" personal chefs will visit a clients home less frequently, and one day may make up to five different entrees, which they will freeze for their clients later consumption. While this is typically the cheaper option, unfortunately the food isn't as tasty nor can it deliver the nutritional quality of fresh meals.

If you're worried that your family will be strapped for time this fall, and you're looking for a practical solution to bring your family together for home-cooked dinner every night, look no further than Atlanta Personal Chef Service. We have a team of professional personal chefs, who each hold a degree in the culinary arts and years of cooking experience, who can help bring your families back to the dinner table. Please contact us if you have any questions!

What’s cooking this week at Atlanta Personal Chef Service?

At Atlanta Personal Chef Service, we love hosting dinner parties, but we’re also cooking Monday through Friday.  Some of our clients hire us to cook for them every night of the work-week, which frees up their schedules to spend time with their families instead of worrying about dinner.  So, what would be more fitting than to give you a sample menu of what we cook week in and week out?  Below is the actual menu of what we cooked for one of our clients last week.  Maybe it will even give you some ideas of family dinners to try for yourself!  If you’re thinking about hiring a chef to cook dinner, even for a few days out of the week, contact us to see if we might be the personal chef service for you.

Monday

Arugula Salad

Honey Lime Roasted Chicken with Wild Rice Sweet Potato Hash and Zucchini

Tuesday

Seasonal Fresh Fruit Salad

Seared Tilapia with Spaghetti Squash and Roasted Eggplant

Wednesday

Spinach Salad

BBQ Skirt Steak, Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Collard Greens

Thursday

Grilled Ahi Tuna Avocado Salad

Crab cake with Corn Crab Chowder

Friday

Roasted Leg of Lamb, Butternut Squash Purée, Roasted Asparagus

Chocolate Soufflé